Song of Myself: The Story of Keightley Booth
by dreamingdaylight123
Summary: Julia Keightley Ava Booth was left at an orphanage at 6 months old. She sees her parents Temperance "Bones" Brennan and Seeey Booth twice a year, but she's never been "home." Now she's thirteen, and her parents want her back. Sorry I suck at summaries!
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

If you asked anyone around here who I was, the first thing they'd say would be that I was an orphan. Yeah, an orphan. I know, boohoo, poor little girl. Whatever. It's been thirteen years, and I've gotten past the whole "Let's-Find-Mommy-and-Daddy" scene. And besides, it's not like they're dead. I see them every year on my birthday and at Christmas. And no, they're not in jail.

My mom's a forensic anthropologist that works at the Jeffersonian Institute here in Washington D.C. She's known all over the world for her novels. My dad's a former sniper for the U.S. Army Rangers and now he's an FBI Agent that specializes in solving homicides. I'm—what my friend Hailey likes to call a "certified genius." I've been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and I graduated from Princeton University with a doctorate in anthropology. You'd think after all that _maybe_ your all-too-busy parents would think twice of leaving you at an orphanage, but no. Obviously not, because you got all that what, four years ago, when you were nine, and now you're _still_ stuck in this dump? Yeah. Real smooth, Mom and Dad.

After all that, you might be wondering what my name is, who I am.

My name is Julia Keightley Ava Booth. Certified genius, orphan, and Princeton graduate.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I sat reading "Pride and Prejudice" near the windowsill in the "play room." They called it a play room, but most of us call it the "We-couldn't-come-up-with-a-better-name-so-we-decided-to-call-it-that" room.

None of us really have anything to play with or read except for me, only because I'm the only "orphan" with parents that visit me and bring whatever I ask them to bring (except for a credit card). My two closest friends at the orphanage, McKenna and Claudia, never learned how to read and they don't teach us much except how to make our beds and wash the dishes.

I heard approximately nineteen loud bangs—gunshots? before the window shattered and I fell on my back, my head and knees throbbing. I looked at my legs—blood. There were large pieces of glass sticking out of my legs, soaked in crimson. I touched my forehead lightly and my fingers became sticky with blood. My hair was sprawled out and I smelled something salty in the air.

"Crap!" I heard McKenna—or was it Claudia? yell. "Call 911 or something!"

And then I passed out.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Author's Note: I've never been an orphan and I've never been shot at, so I kinda-sorta tried to imagine what it'd be like for this chapter.

I woke up in the hospital to see my dad and my mom hovering over my bed. There were three more people in the room, sitting in chairs—two kids that looked really similar to each other, and Max, my criminal grandfather. I tried to sit up, but my head hurt too much.

"Uh, can you give me some space?" I asked, trying not to sound rude, but it kind of came out wrong. They didn't move.

My dad—I hadn't seen him for about 4 months now—shook his head. "I'm not allowed to let you out of my sight, Keight."

"You did for the past thirteen years of my life," I replied.

Max shook his head and smiled. "Told you it would scar her for life, Tempe." Oh. So my mom, forensic anthropology genius, _didn't_ know that leaving someone in an orphanage would make them pretty pissed off?

"Who are you?" I inquired, pointing at the two unknown figures.

One of them was a girl—she had long dirty-blond hair and really pretty blue eyes, and she was dressed in an Abercrombie shirt, jeans, and white flip-flops. She was scrolling through her text messages on her BlackBerry Storm. Wow. She looked like she _really_ wanted to be here, you know?

The second was a boy—same dirty-blond hair but darker blue eyes. He wore a Pittsburgh Steelers jersey and jeans. He looked like he should've been at a football game, not waiting for someone he didn't know in a hospital to wake up.

"Keightley," Max said. "These are your siblings. Cameron and Ryan."

I gaped at the two in shock, and then turned, pretty pissed off, to my parents, who appeared to be nervous. "M-my _siblings_?" I repeated. "And you didn't tell me? Let me guess, you've had them for thirteen years, living at _your_ house and you just decided to _ditch_ me? Does Parker know about them? Oh yeah, he does because he's been _living_ with them for thirteen years, but the only time he's seen _me_ is my eleventh birthday!"

"Keightley…" my dad put his hand on my shoulder, but I shook it off. "You don't understand."

"I understand enough to be disgusted," I replied coolly.

Max grinned. "I think it's time for you two to do a bit of explaining to your daughter," he said to my mom and dad. He ushered my siblings out of the room and said as he closed the door, "Remember—what would Sweets do?"

"Who the heck is Sweets?" I asked when Max, Cameron, and Ryan had left.

"A shrink," my dad answered.

We sat in silence for a few minutes, until my mom broke the silence. "So…"

"Talk," I ordered. "Go on ahead, start explaining. You have a whole thirteen years of explaining to do."

My dad sat beside me on the small white hospital bed. "Okay. So you, Cami, and Ryan were born January 7th, 1996."

"I know when my birthday is."

"Okay, well, when you were four months old, your mom was taking you to her work, because Angela was going to take care of you that day while your mom worked. On the way to work, somebody started shooting at your mom and you, but thank God, nobody got hurt."

"So why wasn't Mom put in an asylum or something if I was put in an orphanage?" I asked, cutting to the chase.

"I'm getting there," my dad said, holding up a finger. "We decided it was best if I never left your side, because you were smaller, more fragile than Bones, and since I'm the former sniper, I could make sure you wouldn't be harmed. Bones was followed around everywhere by two FBI agents and we put stronger security at the Jeffersonian. But at my office, I went to go get my coffee, and left you on a chair, and during that one minute, someone tried to shoot you outside of the FBI building. So we decided to you know, leave you at an orphanage where they wouldn't be able to find you. It was for your safety."

"And so what happened?" I asked.

"They found you. Ever since you got that Nobel Peace Prize nomination when you were nine, orphanages around the country have been attacked by some random sociopaths and murderers. I guess they found you last week."

I looked up at my father. "Last _week?"_

"You've been out for a week, Keight," my dad said.

"So…" I began. "What's going to happen now?"

My mom, speaking for the first time ever, said, "We're taking you home. And you're going to be a normal kid. You're going to go to Robert Frost Secondary School—we arranged it so that you only have to take PE, History, and Math, since you have a PhD in English Literature and in Anthropology. You're going to be a regular seventh grader, except for math class you're going to take Calculus. And then Booth's going to pick you up, drive you to the Jeffersonian, and you'll be with me and you'll be helping us at the lab. And then we heard you like to swim, so Booth has arranged for you to be on a competitive swim team, and he's going to take you there. Okay?"

"Okay…" I answered. "What about my friends? McKenna and Claudia?"

My mom smiled. "You'll make new friends. It's for their safety, Keightley. If you were still talking and playing with them, they could get seriously hurt."

I nodded. "How badly hurt am _I?"_

"Pretty bad. You had two broken ribs, you have pretty nasty scratches on your head and stitches on your legs. You'll be able to go back home in a month."

"Great," I smiled. "And Booth?"

My dad turned around, grinning. "Yeah?"

"I wanna meet Sweets."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Author's Note: This chapter is kinda sucky so you can skip it if you want. One of my best friends (who is actually named Cami) wanted me to add stuff about her. And the descriptions of Cami are pretty much accurate (hopefully not bragging here)—dirty-blond, popular, and she actually is going out with a guy named Carter Brown , except she doesn't have siblings named Ryan and Julia-Keightley. (although one of my friends is named Julia and has an older brother named Ryan if that counts) 

I looked down at the white sheet of paper in my hands that had my schedule for the rest of the school year. Ryan and Cami had run off to their homerooms with their enormous group of friends that acted as if they were British monarchs, not regular 7th graders.

Julia Keightley Ava Booth

Grade: 7

Team: Discovery (GT)

Homeroom: Keller, 210

English 7 GT, Reed, 301

American History 7 GT, Lawrence, 314

Calculus (AP), Overlee, 514

PE/Health 7, Atkins, Gym 2

Lunch 7, Cafeteria

I made my way to Room 210. It was decorated in all Virginia Tech stuff, and Mr. Keller _really_ overdid it with the whole maroon-and-orange theme. I mean, _really_ overdid it. There were posters, banners, stuffed animals, flags, and pencil holders all from Virginia Tech. I don't dislike the Hokies, but _this_ could get a little annoying.

"Hey, you must be Keightley, am I correct?" Mr. Keller, a 29-ish man said, dressed in a maroon shirt and jeans with a Hokie tie. Way to be subtle. "I'm Mr. K."

"Hi," I answered back, looking around the classroom. I spotted Cami and Ryan, still encircled by their glamorous group of friends, including one that looked—fairly attractive.

"Jonathan!" 'Mr.K' called, and a fairly-tall boy with coffee-brown hair stood up and walked over. "This is Keightley Booth. She's Ryan and Cami's sister—show her around, okay?"

I followed the boy to the empty hallway, as he started walking and pointing at all the photographs of outstanding students, banners, quotations, and posters.

"This is the cafeteria," Jonathan said as he led me to a huge—gigantic, even—room filled with blue and silver posters, banners, and tables.

"Hey, Jonathan?" I asked, my heart aching to ask a question that was really bugging me.

"Nate," the boy corrected. "Or Nathan. Only Mr. K and my parents call me Jonathan."

"Okay," I said, twisting some of my long, light-brown hair around my finger. "Nate. What do you know about Ryan and Cami? I'm just curious. They seem to be really popular. And Ryan's like, the alpha male."

Nate shrugged and began walking back to our homeroom class. "Well, Ryan and Cami have been pretty popular since, well, forever, basically. All the girls are obsessed with Ryan—I mean, he's pretty much got it all, you know? He's the point guard and captain of the junior basketball team, he has straight A's, and he's a total pretty-boy. And Cami's like, really hot. Like there's not one guy that would disagree with me, except for your brother. But if they weren't related, they'd totally be going out. It's like, the perfect pair. And Cami's got straight A's, and she's head cheerleader on the junior cheerleading squad."

I nodded, my eyes scanning the posters that lined the halls of Frost Secondary. "So who's that?" I pointed at a poster of the junior basketball team. I recognized Ryan and the kinda-cute boy from my homeroom.

"That's Carter Brown. Pretty much second to Ryan. They've been best friends for over ten years now. He lives right next to you, as a matter of fact. He's going out with Cami. Ryan wasn't so pleased about that."

Carter Brown. I'd have to remember that name.


End file.
